


The Wretched

by von_gikkingen



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Chapter 14, Gen, Planet Tython (Star Wars), Short One Shot, The Mandalorian (TV) Season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:48:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27893314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/von_gikkingen/pseuds/von_gikkingen
Summary: His decision was made for him when he saw how intent she was on surviving despite the severity of her wounds. Anyone else would have been dead already. It was only her fierce desire to live that kept her breathing.He knew, even then, that she will not be lost even if it takes him hours to get her the proper help. Not this one. She will keep on fighting.Fennec Shand didn’t disappoint.
Relationships: Boba Fett & Fennec Shand
Kudos: 36





	The Wretched

**Author's Note:**

> just trying to work through some fandom feels here...

“You were dead.”

There is amazement and uncertainty in Mandalorian’s words as he says it. Yes. Dead. He remembers he thought the same when he came upon her body, motionless on the sand. She did look beyond help. Just another person for whom the twin suns had set forever. 

There were only the faintest signs. The rise and fall of her chest as she fought for every breath she still had the strength to take were easy to miss if one wasn’t paying attention. But there was nothing but them and the sand and his attention was all hers and he didn’t miss it, the way she was still fighting. The way she wasn’t letting go of life easily, despite her wounds, despite what must have been agony cursing through her burned flesh. 

To leave her to her fate was unthinkable once he understood that. Once he knew her to be someone who wasn’t ready to give up.   
He didn’t save her because she was a sharpshooter of an incredible skill. The price on her head and what it could have gotten him didn’t affect his decision to take her from the place that would have been her grave and see to her wounds. His decision was made for him when he saw how intent she was on surviving despite the severity of her wounds. Anyone else would have been dead already. It was only her fierce desire to live that kept her breathing. 

He knew, even then, that she will not be lost even if it takes him hours to get her the proper help. Not this one. She will keep on fighting. 

Fennec Shand didn’t disappoint. 

She never did. From the moment she first regained consciousness and took stock of her new, altered body, she had lived up to everything he expected of her. For all that it was easy to make assumptions about someone who made their living the way she did, selling her services to whoever was willing to pay for them, she proved herself not to be without honour. She didn’t consider her survival some lucky coincidence, not this woman. She knew she owed a debt. And there was no bitterness in her as she undertook to repay it. 

It was she that spoke of being in his service. A language she once used as she served others, crimelords and Hutts and whoever else was able to afford her. He himself thought of it in different terms. For all that she followed whichever order he might give her, for all that she never questioned anything he did, it was impossible to think of her as some hired gun that was by his side for only as long as he could afford her. Who could trust such a person? No, Fennec was someone he knew he could rely on. She might have been indebted to him, yes, but to describe her as someone that was merely in his service felt wrong. That was not all she was. She was a partner. Someone whose ability in a fight he now relied on as much as he did his own. 

“Fate sometimes steps in to rescue the wretched,” he tells the Mandalorian.

That’s all the man needs to know. No need to speak of the rest. That he was glad to be that fate. That his mission has become something he now knew he could accomplish – because how could he not regain what has been his when he had her to call on for help? This remarkable woman that once fought for every painful breath long after the twin suns should have set for her for the last time. 

He called it fate and so did she, because what other word was there for them to use? It has been true since that now long ago day on Tattooine. They followed the same path, for better or worse. Wherever it lead they would go together. Whatever fights awaited they would fight side by side, putting their trust in the other without reservations. 

And though he spend most of his life relying on no one but himself, as was almost always the case for bounty hunters, he felt no desire to lose what he found in Fennec. What he never suspected he might find, not then, not when he first crossed her path.

If he never spoke of it out loud it was still the truth he never doubted. His own fate have been changed too... 

Perhaps it was Tattooine, giving him something to repay him for all that it has taken from him once. All he knew, all he couldn't possibly doubt when he stood beside her facing the Mandalorian, was that he was better off for not having to stand alone, the way he always had in the past. If this was fate then it was fate worth having... 


End file.
